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THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

JUN. 21 1901 

COPVRIGHT ENTRY 

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COPY B. 



Copyright, 1890, 
By L. prang & CO. 



Copyright, iSi,6 and 1901, 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



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IList of Sllustrattons* 



''•Since the King, O luy friend, for thy countenance sent?' 

[Stanza I.] Frontispiece. 
Said Abner, ''At last thou art conies [Stanza I.] 
<' Thc]i a sunbeam, that burst through the tent- roof, showed 

Saul:' [Stanza III.] 
"U 'here the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's 

bedr [Stanza V.] 
" Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine 

song^vhen hand grasps at hand.'" [Stanza VII.] 
'' And then, the last song when the dead man is praised cu 

his Journey.'' [Stanza VII.] 
' ' And then , the glad chaunt of the marriage." [Stanza VI I .] 
" Then, the chorus intoned as the Levites go up to the altar." 

[Stanza VII.] 

iii 



" The hunt of the bear.'''' [Stanza IX.] 

** And the sleep in the dried river-cJiannel.'''' [Stanza IX.] 

* * Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose 

sword thou didst guard when he trusted thee forth 

with the armies.'''' [Stanza IX.] 
' ' Tha7i by slow pallid sunsets iji autumn , ye watch from 

the shore, at their sad level ^raze o''er the ocean — a 

suti's slow decline.''"' [Stanza X.] 
*' Then fancies grew rife which had co?ne long ago on the 

pasture.'''' [Stanza XII.] 
" Let me tell 07it my tale to its ending.'''' [Stanza XIV.] 
" The dawn struggling with night.'''' [Stanza XIV.] 
" He is Said, ye remember in glory.'''' [Stanza XV.] 
' ' That he sat, as 1 say, with my head Just above his vast 

knees.'''' [Stanza XV.] 
" / know not too well how /found my way home in the 

night:' [Stanza XVIII.] 
" As a runner beset by the populace famished for news.'''' 

[Stanza XVIII.] 



IV 



Entrotiuctors i^ote 



BY 



JOHN ANGUS MacVANNEL, Ph.D. 
Columbia University. 



Embodying as it does the thoughts and feelings, the 
inspirations and aspirations of men and women, litera- 
ture, and especially poetic literature, furnishes one of the 
best means at our command of acquiring that enrichment 
and expansion of our nature which characterizes the rich, 
and ripe, and rounded life. For in the serious study of 
an author's work (of course an author whose work is 
worthy of serious study), we reproduce within ourselves 
that discipline through which his soul attained that sound- 
ness, sweetness, and maturity we instinctively feel to be 
its essential nature, and which in turn exerts a purifying 
and quickening influence in the soul possessed of that 

V 



l^ntrotiuctorg j^ote. 

inner preparedness necessary to the reception of a life 
felt to be higher than its own. 

This preparedness of our inner nature is the inevitable 
medium of the quickening touch of a higher life. It is 
only through a waiting, listening sympathy that the inti- 
mations of the spiritual life become revealed to us. In 
its last analysis real knowledge is a matter of moral affin- 
ity, and only through affinity of nature, partial it may be, 
and as it too often is, may we come under the wholesome 
influences of the author\s stronger imagination, respond 
to the deeper pulsations of his larger heart, and thus ad- 
mitted to the inner circle of a soul that has lived, aspired, 
and suffered, we learn to feel the infinity of what before 
were finite things, the beauty of the commonplace, and 
gradually to fashion for ourselves a fairer object about 
which to entwine our admirations, our hopes, and our 
loves. 

For life is the one source of life. This is the basic 
principle of all education. Spiritual life cannot be kept 
at home ; it must radiate, expand, go forth to meet its 
like. But only the deeper nature can reach the deeper 
nature of others: it is ever the greater lifting the less. 
With so many sources of supply it would be strange in- 
deed if the truly earnest soul should forever fail to meet 

vi 



Entrotiuctoru i&ote. 

some other that is in the line of its type, some teacher 
that its nature needs. It is a hard matter to tell just how 
much one owes to the teacher or author he has once 
learned to reverence and love. EiTects in the spiritual 
life are matters of soul-attitude and are to be measured 
only as they are inwardly realized. Yet the one who has 
made a sympathetic, sincere, patient study, and thereby 
attained a vital apprehension of even one representative 
poem of Wordsworth, Tennyson, or Browning, has com- 
muned with the poet himself, and henceforth will never 
quite forget his enrichment through another's life, the 
mysterious refreshment of his spirit, the inspiration to 
worthier living. 

Browning, with Wordsworth and Tennyson, ever felt 
himself to be a consecrated voice, indeed, one of God's 
truth-tellers. This consciousness of his high calling was 
the informing and fructifying ideal of his career as a man 
and as a poet. His work as an author, giving to us a 
souPs experience in its almost unsurpassed variety of reve- 
lation, is the message from the deeper life of one who ever 
strove to be true to himself and true to God. To him 
the human soul with its faiths, and hopes, and loves, its 
discouragements, failures, and its infinite wealth of weak- 
ness even, is the thing of supreme interest. The religious 

vii 



Entrotiuctori} |iote* 

life as the fullest and freest development of man's nature 
is for Browning the truly normal life. " Soul and God 
stand sure ; " and the perfect life of the soul is the meas- 
ure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. In his ear- 
liest poem, " Pauline,'' published when the poet had just 
reached his tvventy-tirst year, he thus addresses the 
Saviour : 

" O thou pale form ! 
Oft have I stood by thee ; 
Have I been keeping lonely watch with thee 
In the damp night by weeping Olivet, 
Or leaning on thy bosom, proudly less, 
Or dying with thee on the lonely cross. 
Or witnessing thine outburst from the tomb." 

Never for a moment did Browning give up his allegiance 
to Christ. The poem " Saul,'' one of the noblest, if not 
the noblest, of all his poems, is the one most intensely 
religious. In no other poem is the claim of Christ as the 
Way, the Truth, and the Life of the world more pro- 
foundly or more beautifully asserted. Its climax, " To 
see the Christ stand," is for Browning the highest word 
of poetry, of religion, and of life. Few, if any, poems 
in the language touch such depths of the religious life or 
induce within us the conviction that the incarnation of 

viii 



Entrotiuctorg J^otc. 

Christ, besides being the central fact of time, is the cen- 
tral fact of eternity as well. The poem is instinct with a 
living passion, the effluence from the vital soul whose 
experience it records. From beginning to end it is in- 
formed by a mystical thought and faith. The form in 
which the poem is set is beautiful. The oftener it is read 
the more complete appears the harmony between its soul 
and body. The music of each line speaks to the ear 
with its own peculiar elfect ; but with a far deeper music 
the poem speaks to the heart, and it is with this appeal 
this brief introduction is concerned. 

First of all, one or two interesting facts about its first 
publication may be noted ; indeed, there is a special 
interest in the genesis of the poem as showing the 
gradual development of the thought in the poefs mind. 
Part I , or the first nine sections of the poem as we now 
have it, was printed under the same title in No. 7 of 
"Bells and Pomegranates'' (1844); and again without 
alteration in "Poems" of 1849. ^^^ ^^^'^^ ^^^^ P^^^ ^^'^ 
have a picture of surpassing beauty : the lovely boy- 
minstrel David by the side of the dark, maddened king. 
His song is the joy of the hunter, the shepherd, and the 
reaper ; of the Levites as they march to the temple ; of 
the joys of the physical life — the mere living : 

ix 



Introtiuctorg i&ote* 



" Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste, 
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced, 
Oh, the wild joys of living ! the leaping from rock up to rock, 
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver 

shock 
Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, 
And the sultriness showing the lion is crouched in his lair. 
And the meal, the rich dates yellowed with gold dust divine, 
And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught 

of wine. 
And the sleep, in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell 
That the water was wont to go warbling so swiftly and well. 
How good is man's life, the mere living ! how fit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy ! " 

But a deeper note remained to be touched by the poet. 
Whether he had come to the later insight or not it is 
needless to inquire. If, indeed, he had attained the 
higher vision of the poem, as we have it now, when 
the first part was published, Browning at least seems to 
have felt his inability to embody it in the language of 
poetry. It would appear, rather, that the deeper signifi- 
cance of the incident was only gradually revealed to the 
poet through the more intimate contact with life which 
succeeded the year 1844 In the poem as enlarged (1855) 

X 



Introtiuctoru Jiotr. 



by the second part, that is, section ten to the end, the 
deeper note is sounded full and perfect. The good 
that David has worked for Saul, the king, has reacted 
on Browning's own nature, and has appeared in a new 
light. Through it there have been revealed to the poet 
depths of the divine nature and heights of human possi- 
bility undreamt of before ; and through this story of a 
human love he has attained to the vision of the everlast- 
ing mercy — 

"See the King — I would help him, but cannot, the wishes 
fall through. 
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to 
enrich, 

To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — knowing 

which, 
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me 

now ! 
Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst thou — 

so wilt thou ! 
So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost 

crown — 
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down 
One spot for the creature to stand in ! It is by no breath, 
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue 

with death ! 

xi 



Entrotiuctoru i^ote. 



As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved ! 
He who did most, shall bear most ; the strongest shall stand 

the most weak, 
'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my flesh, that 

I seek 
In the Godhead ! I seek it and find it. O Saul it shall be 
A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me, 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever ; a Hand like 

this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the 

Christ stand! " 

Above were quoted a few lines from Browning's early 
poem "Pauline/' Here in these grandly beautiful lines 
of "Saul" we have the belief of the poet's maturer 
years — his confession of faith in Jesus Christ as the 
Way of God in the world. 

Let us try to follow the thought of the poem a little 
more closely. It is founded on the incident in ist Sam- 
uel xvi., 23 : " And it came to pass when the evil spirit 
from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp and 
played with his hand : So Saul was refreshed, and was 
well and the evil spirit departed from him." 

The poem is a dramatic lyric, the boy David being the 

xii 



Introtiuctorg i&ote, 

speaker throughout. He is the embodiment of the 
winning tenderness of youth and the perennial beauty 
of innocence ; his whole being is instinct with the sweet 
pure freshness of happy life ; heaven's own gentleness 
and constancy is in his heart. He tells over, his voice 
to his heart, a wonderful incident which happened to him 
on the evening before — an incident whose imprint was 
on his soul forever. The setting is briefly this : Abner, 
SauPs cousin, sent to David, desiring him to play his 
harp before Saul in the hope that through the ministry 
of song and music the king might be freed from the evil 
spirit. David, with the kindness of his understanding 
heart, is glad to obey. He comes to the tent of the 
melancholy king. Abner's welcome is indeed in the 
heart's own language, tender, hopeful, loving: 

" Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved ! God's child with His 
dew 
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and 

blue, 
Just broken to twine round thy harp strings, as if no wild heat 
Were now raging to torture the desert ! " 

After a moment's uplifting of his soul in prayer to the 
God of his fathers, David opened the fold-skirts of Saul's 

xiii 



Eutrotiuctorg i^ote. 



tent, entered, and was not afraid. Saul, like humanity 
when it wanders far from God, no longer enjoys the daily 
communions and the favorins; love of heaven. Because 
of his own wilfulness his soul is no longer refreshed by 
the rills of God's loving mercy; the divine guidance is 
withdrawn and he suffers the pangs of spiritual loneli- 
ness. There in his desert tent : 

" He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out 

wide 
On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each 

side ; 
He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his 

pangs 
And awaiting his change, the king serpent all heavily hangs, 
Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come 
With the spring time — so agonized Saul, drear and stark, 

blind and dumb." 

To the gentle greeting, " Here is David thy servant," 
Saul makes no answer. Untwining from his harp the 
lilies, emblems of purity and modesty, plucked on the 
way thither in the beautiful valley of Kedron, David be- 
gins to play and sing the simple, heartfelt songs of the 
lone shepherd lads, the home songs his own sheep 
know so well ; songs in praise of the quiet loveliness 

xiv 



IntrotiuctorB |iote. 

and peace of nature, of the flock's instinctive obedience 
to law ; how just as the stars, 

'•'■ One after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star 

Into the eve and the blue far above us — so blue and so far ! " 

The sense of his nearness to and kinship with all nature 
revealed through song and music suffused with love fills 
his young, loving heart. The unity of all life is felt in 
a new and living way. 

" God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our 
fear 
To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here." 

God's love is above his law, yet the love is seen in 
the law of nature's instinctive obedience to His will. 

And now the generous sympathy awakened in David's 
heart inspires him to deeper and more human strains. 
The song is now the help tune of the reapers, the tender 
joys of living ; now of the reaper's wine-song, when 
hand grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, 
and great hearts expand and grow one in the sense of 
this world's life. A still gentler, deeper note is found 
among the strings, a note that speaks of pleading mercy, 
and the deep joys of wedded life. Now the song is an 

XV 



Entrotiuctoru j^otc* 

elegy of the worthy dead, now the builder's chant, now 
the chorus intoned as the Levites go up to the altar in 
glory enthroned. 

Here David paused for an instant. The waking mem- 
ory of his former blessedness causes but a momentary 
shudder to the king. The soul of Saul will not come 
home. Wilfulness is the sin of Saul and he will not 
submit to the will of God whose law is the life of all cre- 
ated things. 

Once more David bends to his harp and there issues 
forth a still more wondrous music. His thoughts are of 
Saul in his young manhood of wonder, of hope, of fulfil- 
ment — symbol of all that was manly and strong and 
joyous. David's song is the song of the vigorous life, 
the music of human existence. Naturally it is the joy 
of the physical life which first appeals to the sweet, 
healthy nature of David. Browning never for a moment 
lost sight of the truth that the physical should be the 
healthy, worthy setting of the higher, spiritual life. The 
physical is a means, not an end. Rut it must never be 
forgotten that it is a means. Physical vitality should be 
a great aid to spiritual vitality. In his deep and vital 
appreciation of this truth Browning is one of the health- 
fulest of poets. "All good things are ours, nor soul 

xvi 



Entrotmctory J^ote* 

helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul," exclaims 
the aged Rabbi in the poet's psalm of life. The spiritual 
is always the more, never the less. It is only when the 
so-called natural is transformed and spiritualized that it 
becomes truly natural. When the natural is made to 
minister to the spiritual within us then and only then 
have we the full liberty of the tree of life. 

Saul feels somewhat the inspiration of David's heartfelt 
appeal. The memory of a glorious past with all that it 
had contained recalls him to a partial consciousness. 
But it is little more than a memory as yet, and a memory 
that is powerless to give SauPs life a meaning. 

Again the harp responds to the spirit of David as he 
turns to life's still deeper motives. Will not the trans- 
mission of Saul's life in the lives of others avail? Will 
not the overflow of his once divinely replenished life into 
the lives which are to come after him sweeten his own 
Hfe and inspire him to live? Even though death should 
one day come to him, nevertheless he is one of those 
ordained in God's Providence to the succession of 
witnesses to his presence and of the continuity of the 
spiritual life ; nor will heirs ever be wanting to the royal 
line of those who are indeed kings and priests unto 
God. 

xvii 



3fntrotiurtor2 i^ote. 



" In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears 
fruit." 

" Each deed thou hast done 
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world." 

'' Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill 
Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they too go 

forth 
A like cheer to their sons ; who in turn, fill the South and 

the North 
With the radiance thy deed was the germ of." 

'' He is Saul, ye remember in glory — ere error had bent 

The broad brow from the daily communion ; and still, though 

much spent 
Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did 

choose. 
To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose." 

Such words of solace and inspiration find a response in 
the troubled spirit of Saul. A human impulse suffuses his 
darkened heart. He places his rough hands on the golden 
head of the youth who kneels beside him, and gazes on 
the mystic light of the love-compelling face, intent to 
peruse it, as men do a fiower. 

"And oh, all my heart how it loved him!'- This is 
the moment of high import in the unfolding life of David's 

xviii 



Entrotmctorg ^ott. 

soul — one of the great moments of soul-revelation when 
the heart is brought by its response of love close to the 
very heart of God. For David it is a moment of pro- 
phetic insight in which he was to see the meaning of his 
life and the way of God in the world — Christ, and Christ 
alone. In this supreme moment of loving self-devotion 
the pure soul of David assimilates the mystery of the 
Incarnation, just as Pompilia, purest and loveliest of 
Browning's women, in the great moment of her life ex- 
claims that Christ was " likest God in being born.'" Both 
could understand why Christ himself should say: "Let 
not your heart be troubled ; ye believe in God, believe 
also in me."" 

David's heart is filled with a passionate love, a longing 
not to be expressed to do for Saul what he would if only 
he could. Neither the physical life, nor influence, nor 
the thought of lives made better by its presence, can sat- 
isfy, or give to the immortal soul the rest and peace it 
craves. His thought is now of the purifying and redeem- 
ing influence of love. The truest love, the only true love, 
is the love that redeems. The good David would do 
reacts on his own spirit, and there issues forth the yearn- 
ing of prophetic inspiration. Song and harp are useless 
now. The only voice that avails is the one that issues 

xix 



Introtructorg i^ote. 

from the soul filled with a deathless tenderness. David's 
heart is flooded with the sweetness of love and self-renun- 
ciation. Surely God himself is self-sacrificing. Love 
must be the mingling of the human with the divine. 
David can give to Saul no more. Whence, then, this 
love of the human heart ? Whose look can satisfy the 
yearning of the human face ? Surely God would give, 
as he would if he only could, for the life which is failing, 
a new, never-failing life. Will not God himself suffer for 
all men ? 

In this moment eternal in the life of David sight has 
become vision and his love for Saul has been the medium 
of the divine disclosure. On the very heights of his life 
he has a vision of the Life that is higher. From the sight 
of the face of Saul whom he loves, he has gained the 
heavenly vision of his own divine Lover. In this vision 
of the unseen and eternal Christ is revealed to David, 
Christ of eternity and of time as well, the fairest among 
ten thousand and the One altogether lovely — the One 
alone who can satisfy and save the soul. 

*' He who did most, shall bear most ; the strongest shall stand 
the most weak, 
'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for ! my flesh, that 
I seek 

XX 



Entrotmctoru J&otc. 



In the Godhead ! I seek it and find it. O Saul, it shall be 
A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me, 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever ; a Hand like this 

hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the 

Christ stand ! ' ' 

Jowett, of Oxford, once said of the David of the 
Psalms: "The Psalmist expresses with a fervor and 
power greater perhaps than has ever been felt or found 
utterance in any age or country, the longing of the soul 
after God and the desire to live always in his presence.'" 
This is the youth in whom Browning has embodied the 
need, the trust, the longing of the soul after God. In the 
gracious performance of duty David has met with God 
and experienced in the inner recesses of the soul His 
satisfying presence. In Christ is the soul-clasp, and the 
heavenly alliance completed. For David, Christ has be- 
come the " Great Word which makes all things new." 

On his return home all Nature becomes responsive to 
his inner life and adds her crowning witness. No longer 
is there world-strangeness ; the Face has become familiar. 
Nature seems glorified with spiritual presences of one 
kin with his own nature, and speaks to him of hitherto 
undreamt-of secrets. A new soul-attitude has been 

xxi 



Introtmctorg Bote. 

gained ; the world is seen now with the eyes of the soul. 
Nature so transfigured reveals not power alone as before, 
but love as well. Instead of the scorched desert of yes- 
terday, there is the sweetness of the pasture lands ; and 
everywhere whispers may be heard by his spirit now 
attuned to the deeper harmony of Life. "E'en so, 
it is so ! " 

At the beginning of this introduction a few lines were 
quoted from " Pauline," a confession of the poefs early 
years. " SauP' is the record of Browning's middle life. 
In his last poem, the "Reverie" to Asolando, is the 
poet's final confession of his faith in God and Immortal 
Love : 

" From the first, Power was — I knew, 
Life has made clear to me 
That, strive but for closer view, 
Love were as plain to see. 

" When see? When there dawns a day, 
If not on the homely earth, 
Then yonder, worlds away, 
Where the strange and new have birth. 
And Power comes full in play." 

John Angus MacVannel. 
xxii 




I. 



Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I 

tell, ere thou speak, 
Kiss my cheek, wish me well ! " Then I wished 

it, and did kiss his cheek. 
And he, " Since the King, O my friend, for thy 

countenance sent, 
Neither drunken nor eaten have we ; nor until 

from his tent 



Thou return with the joyful assurance the King 

Hveth yet, 
Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the 

water be wet. 
For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space 

of three days, 
Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of 

prayer nor of praise, 
To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended 

their strife. 
And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch 

sinks back upon life. 



g>auU 

II. 

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's 

child with his dew 
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still 

living and blue 
Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as 

if no wild heat 
Were now raging to torture the desert ! " 



^auU 



III. 

Then I, as was meet, 
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose 

on my feet, 
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The 

tent was unlooped ; 
I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under 

I stooped ; 
Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch. 

all withered and gone, 
That extends to the second enclosure, I groped 

my way on 
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then 

once more I prayed, 
And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was 

not afraid 
But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant! " And 

no voice replied. 

4 



g)auU 

At the first I saw nought but the blackness ; 
but soon I descried 

A somethmg more black than the blackness — 
the vast, the upright 

Main prop which sustains the pavilion : and 
slow into sight 

Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest 
of all. 

Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent- 
roof, showed Saul. 



g)auL 
IV. 

He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms 
stretched out wide 

On the great cross-support in the centre, that 
goes to each side ; 

He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, 
caught in his pangs 

And waiting his change, the king-serpent all 
heavily hangs, 

Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliver- 
ance come 

With the spring-time, — so agonized Saul, drear 
and stark, blind and dumb. 



V. 

Then I tuned my harp, — took off the lilies we 

twine round its chords 
Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide 

— those sunbeams like swords ! 
And I first played the tune all our sheep know, 

as, one after one. 
So docile they come to the pen-dooi till folding 

be done. 
They are white and untorn by the bushes, for 

lo, they have fed 
Where the long grasses stifle the water within 

the stream's bed ; 
And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star 

follows star 
Into eve and the blue far above us, — so blue 

and so far ! 



§)auU 
Vi. 

— Then the tune, for which quails on the corn- 

land will each leave his mate 
To fly after the player ; then, what makes the 

crickets elate 
Till for boldness they fight one another : and 

then, what has weight 
To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his 

sand house — ■ 
There are none such as he for a wonder, half 

bird and half mouse ! 
God made all the creatures and gave them our 

love and our fear. 
To give sign, we and they are his children, one 

family here. 



» k'. . . 



yk. 


\^ 



>W*«I» 



v'-^ ^ 



-mn^ 



VII. 

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, 
their wine-song, when hand 

Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friend- 
ship, and great hearts expand 

And grow one in the sense of this world's life. 
— And then, the last song 

When the dead man is praised on his journey — 
" Bear, bear him along 




g>auL 

With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets ! 

Are balm seeds not here 
To console us ? The land has none left such as 

he on the bier. 
Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother ! " — 

And then, the glad chaunt 
Of the marriage, — first go the young maidens, 

next, she whom we vaunt 
As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. — 

And then, the great march 




lO 




te>— * ■^.ti^iiVs.W 



g)auL 

Wherein man runs to man to assist him and 
buttress an arch 

Nought can break ; who shall harm them, our 
friends ? Then, the chorus intoned 

As the Levites go up to the altar in glory en- 
throned. 

But I stopped here : for here in the darkness 
Saul groaned. 



II 



VIII. 

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, 
and listened apart ; 

And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered : 
and sparkles 'gan dart 

From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once 
with a start, 

All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies coura- 
geous at heart. 

So the head : but the body still moved not, still 
hung there erect. 

And I bent once again to my playing, pursued 
it unchecked, 

As I sang, — 



12 



IX. 

" Oh, our manhood's pnme vigor ! No 
spirit feels waste, 
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing, nor sinew 

unbraced. 
Oh, the wild joys of living ! the leaping from 

rock up to rock, 
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, 

the cool silver shock 
Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt 

of the bear, 
And the sultriness showing the lion is couched 

in his lair. 
And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with 

gold dust divine. 
And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the 

full draught of wine, 
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where 
bulrushes tell 

13 



That the water was wont to go warbling so softly 

and well. 
How good is man's life, the mere living ! how 

fit to employ 




14 



All the heart and the soul and the senses forever 

in joy ! 
Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, 

whose sword thou didst guard 
When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for 

glorious reward ? 
Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, 

held up as men sung 
The low song of the nearly-departed, and hear 

her faint tongue 
Joining in while it could to the witness, * Let 

one more attest, 
I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, 

and all was for best ? ' 
Then they sung through their tears in strong 

triumph, not much, but the rest. 
And thy brothers, and help and the contest, the 

working whence grew 
Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the 

spirit strained true : 

15 



And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood 

of wonder and hope, 
Present promise and wealth of the future beyond 

the eye's scope, — 
Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch ; a people 

is thine ; 
And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on 

one head combine ! 
On one head, all the beauty and strength, love 

and rage (like the throe 
That, a-work in the rock, helps its labor and 

lets the gold go) 
High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame 

crowning them, — all 
Brought to blaze on the head of one creature — 

King Saul ! " 



i6 



g)auU 
X. 

And lo, with that leap of my spirit, — heart, 

hand, harp and voice, 
Each Ufting Saul's name out of sorrow, each 

bidding rejoice 
Saul's fame in the light it was made for — as 

when, dare I say. 
The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains 

through its array. 
And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot — " Saul ! " 

cried I, and stopped. 
And waited the thing that should follow. Then 

Saul, who hung propped 
By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was 

struck by his name. 
Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons 

goes right to the aim. 
And some mountain, the last to withstand her, 

that held (he alone, 

17 



While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) 

on a broad bust of stone 
A year's snow bound about for a breast-plate, — 

leaves, grasp of the sheet ? 
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously 

down to his feet, 
And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, 

your mountain of old, 
With his rents, the successive bequeathings of 

ages untold — 
Yes, each harm got in fighting your battles, 

each furrow and scar 
Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest — 

all hail, there they are ! 
— Now again to be softened with verdure, again 

hold the nest 
Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to 

the green on his crest 
For their food in the ardors of summer. One 

long shudder thrilled 
i8 



g>auU 

All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank 

and was stilled 
At the King's self left standing before me, re- 
leased and aware. 
What was gone, what remained ? All to trav- 
erse 'twixt hope and despair; 
Death was past, life not come : so he waited. 

Awhile his right hand 
Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant 

forthwith to remand 
To their place what new objects should enter : 

'twas Saul as before. 
I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor 

was hurt any more 
Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch 

from the shore, 
At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean — a sun's 

slow decline 
Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'er- 
lap and entwine 

19 



g)auU 

Base with base to knit strength more intensely 

so, arm folded arm 
O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. 



20 



^auU 



XI. 

What spell or what charm, 
(For, awhile there was trouble within me,) what 

next should I urge 
To sustain him where song had restored him ? — 

Song filled to the verge 
His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all 

that it yields 
Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty : 

beyond, on what fields. 
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to 

brighten the eye 
And bring blood to the lip, and commend them 

the cup they put by ? 
He saith, " It is good ; " still he drinks not : he 

lets me praise life, 
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. 



21 



©aiiL 



XII. 

Then fancies grew rife 
Which had come long ago on the pasture, when 

round me the sheep 
Fed in silence — above, the one eagle wheeled 

slow as in sleep ; 
And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world 

that might lie 
'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt 

the hill and the sky : 
And I laughed — " Since my days are ordained 

to be passed with my flocks, 
Let me people at least, with my fancies, the 

plains and the rocks, 
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and 

image the show 
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I 

hardly shall know ! 

22 



g>auL 

Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the 

courage that gains. 
And the prudence that keeps what men strive 

for." 

And now these old trains 
Of vague thought came again ; I grew surer ; 

so, once more the string 
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as 

thus — 



^3 



fe>auU 

XIII. 

" Yea, my King," 
I began — '' thou dost well in rejecting mere 

comforts that spring 
From the mere mortal life held in common by 

man and by brute : 
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our 

soul it bears fruit. 
Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree, — 

how its stem trembled first 
Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler ; 

then safely outburst 
The fan-branches all round ; and thou mindest 

when these too, in turn. 
Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed per- 
fect : yet more was to learn, 
E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. 

Our dates shall we slight. 
When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow ? 

or care for the plight 
24 



Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced 

them ? Not so ! stem and branch 
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while 

the palm-wine shall stanch 
Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour 

thee such wine. 
Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for ! the 

spirit be thine ! 
By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, 

thou still shalt enjoy 
More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the 

life of a boy. 
Crush that life, and behold its wine running ! 

Each deed thou hast done 
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world ; until 

e'en as the sun 
Looking down on the earth, though clouds 

spoil him, though tempests efface. 
Can find nothing his own deed produced not, 

must everywhere trace 

25 



g>auL 

The results of his past summer-prime, — so, 

each ray of thy will, 
Every flush of thy passion and prowess, long 

over, shall thrill 
Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till 

they too give forth 
A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the 

South and the North 
With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. 

Carouse in the past ! 
But the license of age has its limit ; thou diest 

at last : 
As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose 

at her height. 
So with man — so his power and his beauty for- 
ever take flight. 
No ! Again a long draught of my soul-wine ! 

Look forth o'er the years ! 
Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual ; 

begin with the seer's ! 

26 



Is Saul dead ? In the depth of the vale make 
his tomb — bid arise 

A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, 
till, built to the skies, 

Let it mark where the great First King slum- 
bers : whose fame would ye know ? 

Up above see the rock's naked face, where the 
record shall go 

In great characters cut by the scribe, — Such 
was Saul, so he did ; 

With the sages directing the work, by the popu- 
lace chid, — 

For not half, they '11 affirm, is comprised there ! 
Which fault to amend. 

In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, 
whereon they shall spend 

(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their 

praise, and record 
With the gold of the graver, Saul's story, — the 
statesman's great word 
27 



Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. 

The river 's a-wave 
With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other 

when prophet-winds rave : 
So the pen gives unborn generations their due 

and their part 
In thy being ! Then, first of the mighty, thank 

God that thou art ! " 



28 



XIV. 

And behold while I sang . . . but O Thou who 

didst grant me that day, 
And before it not seldom hast granted thy help 

to essay, 
Carry on and complete an adventure, — my 

shield and my sword 
In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy 

word was my word, — 
Still be with me, who then at the summit of 

human endeavor 
And scaling the highest, man's thought could, 

gazed hopeless as ever 
On the new stretch of heaven above me — till, 

mighty to save, 
Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance — 

God's throne from man's grave ! 
Let me tell out my tale to its ending — my voice 

to my heart 

29 



Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels 
last night I took part, 

As this morning I gather the fragments, alone 
with my sheep, 

And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like 
sleep ! 

For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while 
Hebron upheaves 

The dawn struggling with night on his shoul- 
der, and Kidron retrieves 

Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine. 



30 



XV. 

I say then, — my song 
While I sang thus, assurmg the monarch, and 

ever more strong 
Made a proffer of good to console him — he 

slowly resumed 
His old motions and habitudes kingly. The 

right hand replumed 
His black locks to their wonted composure, ad- 
justed the swathes 
Of his turban, and see — the huge sweat that 

his countenance bathes. 
He wipes off with the robe ; and he girds now 

his loins as of yore, 
And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the 

clasp set before. 
He is Saul, ye remember in glory, — ere error 

had bent 
The broad brow from the daily communion ; 

and still, though much spent 

31 



Be the life and the bearing that front you, the 

same, God did choose, 
To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, 

never quite lose. 
So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed 

by the pile 
Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he 

leaned there awhile. 
And sat out my singing, — one arm round the 

tent-prop, to raise 
His bent head, and the other hung slack — till 

I touched on the praise 
I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man 

patient there ; 
And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then 

first I was 'ware 
That he sat, as I say, with my head just above 

his vast knees 
Which were thrust out on each side around me, 

like oak roots which please 
32 



To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked 

up to know 
If the best I could do had brought solace : he 

spoke not, but slow 
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid 

it with care 
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my 

brow : through my hair 
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent 

back my head, with kind power — 
All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do 

a flower. 
Thus held he me there with his great eyes that 

scrutinized mine — 
And oh, all my heart how it loved him ! but 

where was the sign ? 
I yearned — " Could I help thee, my father, in- 
venting a bliss, 
I would add, to that life of the past, both the 

future and this ; 

33 



I would give thee new life altogether, as good, 

ages hence, 
As this moment, — had love but the warrant, 

love's heart to dispense ! " 



34 



^auU 



XVI. 

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more 

— no song more ! out-broke 
" I have gone the whole round of creation : I 

saw and I spoke : 
I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, 

received in my brain 
And pronounced on the rest of his handwork — 

returned him again 
His creation's approval or censure ; I spoke as 

I saw : 
I report, as a man may of God's work — all's 

love, yet all 's law. 
Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. 

Each faculty tasked 
To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a 

dewdrop was asked, 
Have I knowledge ? confounded it shrivels at 

Wisdom laid bare. 

35 



Have I forethought ? how purblind, how blank, 

to the Infinite Care ! 
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success ? 
I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more 

and no less, 
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God 

is seen God 
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul 

and the clod. 
And thus looking within and around me, I ever 

renew 
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending 

upraises it too) 
The submission of man's nothing-perfect to 

God's all-complete. 
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to 

his feet. 
Yet with all this abounding experience, this 

deity known, 
I shall dare to discover some province, some 

gift of my own. 

36 



There 's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to 

hoodwink, 
I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as 

I think) 
Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, 

I worst 
E'en the Giver in one gift. — Behold, I could 

love if I durst ! 
But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may 

o'ertake 
God's own speed in the one way of love : I 

abstain for love's sake. 
— What, my soul ? see thus far and no farther ? 

when doors great and small, 
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should 

the hundredth appall ? 
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the 

greatest of all ? 
Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ulti- 
mate gift, 

37 



That I doubt his own love can compete with it ? 

Here, the parts shift ? 
Here, the creature surpass the Creator — the 

end, what Began ? 
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for 

this man, 
And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, 

who yet alone can ? 
Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare 

will, much less power. 
To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the 

marvellous dower 
Of the life he was gifted and filled with ? to 

make such a soul, 
Such a body, and then such an earth for in- 
sphering the whole ? 
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm 

tears attest). 
These good things being given, to go on, and 

give one more, the best ? 

38 



Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, main- 
tain at the height 

This perfection, — succeed with Ufe's dayspring, 
death's minute of night ? 

Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul 
the mistake, 

Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now, — and 
bid him awake 

From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to 
find himself set 

Clear and safe in new light and new life, — a 
new harmony yet 

To be run, and continued, and ended — who 
knows ? — or endure ! 

The man taught enough by life's dream, of the 
rest to make sure ; 

By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning inten- 
sified bliss. 

And the next world's reward and repose, by the 



struggles in this. 



39 



XVII. 

•* I believe it ! T is thou, God, that givest, t is I 

who receive : 
In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to 

beUeve. 
All 's one gift : thou canst grant it moreover, as 

prompt to m}" prayer 
As I breathe out this breath, as I open these 

arms to the air. 
From thy will, stream the worlds, life and 

nature, thy dread Sabaoth : 
/ win ? — the mere atoms despise me I Whv am 

I not loth 
To look that, even that in the face too ? WTiy 

is it I dare 
Think but lightly of such impuissance ? WTiat 

stops my despair ? 
This ; — 't is not what man Does which exalts 

him, but what man Would do I 
40 



See the King — I would help him but cannot, 

the wishes fall through. 
Could I wTestle to raise him from sorrow, grow 

poor to enrich. 
To fill up his life, star\*e my own out, I would — 

knowing which. 
I know that my 5er\-ice is perfect. Oh. speak 

through me now I 
Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst 

thou — so wilt thou ! 
So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, 

uttermost crown — 
And thy love fills infinitude whoUy, nor leave up 

nor down 
One spot for the creature to stand in I It is by 

no breath, 
Turn of eye. wave of hand, that salvation joins 

issue with death I 
As thv Love is discovered al::nii:hn". almi5:ht\" 

be proved 

41 



XVIIL 

I know not too well how I found my way home 

in the night. 
There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left 

and to right. 
Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, 

the aware : 
I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as 

strugglingly there, 
As a runner beset by the populace famished for 

news — 
Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, 

hell loosed with her crews ; 
And the stars of night beat with emotion, and 

tingled and shot 
Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge : 

but I fainted not, 
For the Hand still impelled me at once and 

supported, suppressed 

43 



g)auL 

All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and 

holy behest. 
Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth 

sank to rest. 
Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered 

from earth — 
Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's 

tender birth ; 
In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of 

the hills ; 
In the shuddering forests' held breath ; in the 

sudden wind-thrills; 
In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each 

with eye sidling still 
Though averted with wonder and dread ; in the 

birds stiff and chill 
That rose heavily, as I approached them, made 

stupid with awe : 
E'en the serpent that slid away silent, — he felt 

the new law. 

L.ofC. 



&auL 

The same stared in the white humid faces up- 
turned by the flowers ; 

The same worked in the heart of the cedar and 
moved the vine-bowers : 

And the httle brooks witnessing murmured, 
persistent and low, 

With their obstinate, all but hushed voices — 
" E'en so, it is so ! " 



FINIS. 



45 



JUN 21 190 



